This morning’s experience was a bizarre one. As Genevieve followed the guard down the corridor, she considered that this could possibly be the final time she may be summoned to Azkaban prison. Tomorrow, her husband could quite possibly be released. Leo Gamp, murderer, torturer and Death Eater could be exonerated and allowed back into public to continue with his life. Years of living in uncertainty about her husband’s guilt may soon end. Years of being judged by everyone she met might finally come to a crescendo. But what did it all really matter to her? What may once have been a dream come true was no doubt about to turn into a nightmare. Leo blamed her. He accused her of lying and he was rightly furious that she’d kept their son a secret. Gen was staring down a corridor to the hell of Azkaban while she metaphorically stared down a tunnel to her own personal hell.

The letter had been, most certainly, a surprise. The most recent time that the editor had seen her husband, he’d been hexed after shouting and becoming irate. He was mad with her, and it didn’t bode well for in 24 hours’ time. Regardless, the witch had answered her husband’s call. She’d come alone, much to the frustration of her son who’d been desperate to join his mother.

The owl had arrived the previous evening while they’d been enjoying a takeaway Chinese dinner on the sofa in their small flat. It had become somewhat a tradition, to curl up on the sofa in their pyjamas and feast on crappy takeaway whenever Dante returned home from Hogwarts. They would play ridiculously loud music and Dante would beat her at Wizard’s chess every time. Their evening had taken a turn when the owl had tapped on the window and Dante had used it as an opening to ask questions about his dad and the trial the following day.

Choosing not the fight the interest this time, Gen had opted with telling her son the good stories and showing him some photographs that she’d kept buried deep in a cupboard. They’d been up into the early hours, both mother and son getting lost in stories and memories.

Today, Gen was dragged back to reality. She’d stepped off the boat into the pouring rain, and being directed through the damp dark hallway did little to improve her mood. She’d chosen to dress in her usual style today, the plan being to return to Witch Weekly headquarters after this visit. Her dress was immaculate, an A-line knee length black number paired with a dark red leather jacket and black knee high boots. A long cream scarf hung around her neck, covering some of the hair which hung in its usual neat waves. Sometimes it was easier to hide behind an immaculate appearance. These were the walls this witch had built.

The shield may have worked to help maintain her poker face had she not come face to face with a far more familiar wizard than she’d ever expected. Gen literally froze in the door, dark eyes widening at the sight before her.

Leo Gamp was still dressed in the uniform of an Azkaban prisoner. It still hung from him in a deeply unflattering manner. But the hair was gone. The beard was gone. The stranger that had yelled at her for abandoning him had been replaced once more by her husband, and Gen was visibly shocked.

Leo Gamp, the love of her life was sat in the chair.

Behind her, the guard grunted and put a hand on her arm. “You need to sit, missus.”

She didn’t take her eyes off the wizard at the table as she came to sit down, neither did she say anything. Why was she here? Why today?

Perched at the eve of his trial, it was strange to feel like himself again. To run his fingers through newly-shorn hair, to look in the mirror and see his own face.  To be Leo Gamp.  It was as if the past thirteen years had made him forget, as if he'd lost himself to the gray dullness of Azkaban, where every monotonous day was exactly like the one before it.

Enid had dutifully gotten his letter to his wife.  He hadn't been surprised when he'd gotten word that he had another visitor.  With his hearing in the morning, Gen had to be struggling to integrate her own story with a reality that was out of her control.  She'd come to him once before to try and twist the narrative to one of her own creation.  Inviting her to come and see him simply gave her that opportunity anew.

Despite it all -- despite the past thirteen years of acrid isolation, despite how self-deluded he knew her to be -- his breath caught as his wife entered.  Gen had always had a certain style about her, but the past thirteen years had aged her gracefully into elegance.  Her immaculate appearance, with the elegant black dress and cream scarf, made her look like she'd stepped out of her own magazine.

He waited for her to sit, green eyes never leaving her dark ones.  Being opposite her now made him feel self-conscious about his own appearance: skin pale from the lack of sun, most of his muscle mass gone after the years in prison.

The silence between them hung heavy for an instant.  He wet his lips.

"How's Dante?" he asked, his gaze never leaving her face.

It felt as if they could have stared at each other for hours. For the first time in all of her previous visits, Leo’s green eyes weren’t full of hate and anger, as if such strong emotions had vanished with the hair. He may not have aged well, he may have been somewhat gaunt and pale, but he was Leo.

When he finally spoke, Gen realised that her eyes were glistening and her lips parted in the lingering surprise. She was the first to break eye contact with her gaze flashing down to the table. She’d tried last time to talk of their son but he’d let his resentment take over and the situation had escalated beyond repair.

“He’s well.” She muttered before glancing back up. This was far harder to keep her cool today. The man sat across from her was no longer an angry stranger and he was very possibly going to be released tomorrow. He was about to wreak havoc on every aspect of her life and, if he was innocent, she deserved it for giving up on him. “He got home last night for Christmas, another set of brilliant grades under his belt. Definitely doesn’t get it from me.” It was with a nervous smile that Gen shrugged. “He’s like a mini-Leo.” He didn’t get his smarts from the Hogwarts drop out, for sure. But did she really want her son taking after his dad? Who was his dad, really?

“Did you do it?” Without another thought, Gen suddenly blurted out, staring across the table at him. She looked scared. “Any of what they accused you of? Did you?” She’d never asked him before.

He'd gone over a decade without even knowing that his son existed, but in the months since he'd found out about him, it was as if he were trying to cram all the news he'd missed into whatever morsels he could get.  Beyond anything else, that was what he knew he could never forgive Genny for: by first testifying against him at the trial and then keeping Dante's existence a deeply-held secret, she'd taken away his chance to know his son, to watch him grow and become a young man.

But Genny clearly had her own questions occupying her thoughts. 

"Did you do it?" she blurted out, looking terrified.  "Any of what they accused you of?  Did you?"

He met her gaze and held it.  The line of his jaw was straight but wavering.

"Theodora Kingstreet accused me of it."  His voice sounded strained, but there was a hard note to it, a certainty that hadn't been there in their recent meetings.  "Genny, I was never a Death Eater.  I wish there were something I could do to convince you that I was innocent."

His green-eyed gaze was fixed on her, certain, definite. His words affected Genny more than she’d have liked them to. For over a decade, she’d refused to actually ask her husband the question, being scared that she wouldn’t be able to tell if he were speaking the truth. Or if he admitted it, how much it would hurt. Even now, as Gen listened and stared across at him, she didn’t know and she was as lost as before. Leo had been an auror. A good auror. He knew how to read and play people. Maybe he really had played her for years. But could you really not know a person that you’d loved for so long? Had he really been kissing goodbye to her and going to torture innocent muggleborn wixes? It was far worse than any alternative Gen had imagined when he’d started to spend all that time away from home.

“It’s not me that you need to convince, is it?” Gen’s arms were now crossed protectively over her stomach, her body language rather defensive, uncomfortable. Usually, a woman that oozed with confidence and widely regarded as a rather self-assured and outgoing witch, it was an anomaly for her to sit in such a manner. But Gen’s life was about to explode into a living nightmare if Leo was let out and he wasn’t innocent. She would be paying for it even if he was innocent. She’d abandoned him and failed to believe him. She’d removed his wedding ring, tried to divorce him, and kept their son a secret from him for 13 years.

Was there any point in apologising? He wouldn’t listen. There would be redemption for Leo, but none for them as a couple.

“I was convinced.” Gen admitted after a moment’s silence. “Until you started screaming at me in court. I was telling the truth. You said those things.”

One moment, Genny was prepared to beg for his forgiveness, quick to offer him photos of his son and throw herself in front of the curse.  The next, she was launching accusations at him again, pushing the blame away from herself.  She couldn't decide, couldn't keep it straight. 

A lifetime ago, when they'd lived together in a marriage that meant something real, whenever she was terrified, Genny used to flail and lash out.  Now, clearly feeling like the situation involving him was out of her control, she was doing the same thing.  Desperate to avoid blame, but at the same time, desperate to forgive herself and desperate for things to be right again.

He raised his eyebrows, green eyes locked on hers. 

"I think you're wrong," he said quietly.  Not to the yelling; not to her insistence that she was telling the truth.  Those were battles that they could resume later.  Maybe they could even pick them up again in a place far from these stone walls.  "I think that you're the one that I most need to convince."

After their last meeting, this was a drastic change of events. To have Leo here, calm, looking himself, not yelling angrily at her, Gen didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t help but feel that this was a final play on the eve of the trial. The last pass before he caught the golden snitch. Leo knew his lawyer had called her up; he clearly wanted her in the right state of mind.

“For tomorrow’s trial? Did you figure out that yelling at me and calling me a selfish $!@% wasn’t going to get you a good speech from me? Is that it, Leo? I need the wife convinced so she can put on a good act for the Wizengamot on my behalf?” Now it was Gen’s turn to be angry. She pressed her hands together, wringing them nervously. “You want me convinced? Don’t send me 500 angrily annotated books and a threatening letter on my birthday. Intimidation is hardly ever going to lead to my trust, is it? Or had Azkaban changed you so much that you don’t realise that now?”

Clearly agitated, Gen shifted back in her chair, but she still didn’t break eye contact with her husband. “Why am I here, Leo? Why the letter?”

How quickly the story took a turn, until it was focused on his wife again.  Genny was always the victim, always the one who was attacked and never at fault.  She couldn't accept that she had played a role in his conviction, that the false testimony that Kingstreet had prompted had helped to doom him to Azkaban.  He tried to extend a hand the day before his trial, which would either see him once more a free man or stuck in these godawful walls forever more, and she very quickly reverted to accusing him of having brought this on himself.

He couldn't stand it.  Once upon a time, her focus on her own story had been endearing, but after thirteen years in Azkaban, he couldn't stand the selfishness. 

"Because I want to meet my son!" he snapped at her.

Enid's words hovered in his mind, boldly standing out as if someone had cast Lumos on each letter -- What do you want her writing, Leo? -- but it suddenly didn't feel as if it mattered. 

He reached his hands to his face, nominally to drag his fingers through his beard, but there was nothing there. 

"If you think that I need you to put on an act for the Wizengamot, then you don't know my lawyer."  His voice was tight, his green eyes fixed on his wife.  "I wrote to you because there's a bloody good chance that I might--"  His throat felt like it was closing in on itself, but he pushed through.  "-- released tomorrow, and I want to meet my son, Genny!"

The anger was clearly still lingering beneath the surface but Leo held it back enough as he snapped at her. Gen was struck by the words, thrown into a stunned silence. Dante. All he wanted was to meet Dante. She’d been right before. But did meeting him mean that he wanted to take Dante? Was her son in danger or was Leo only desperate to be a father to him and make up for the years lost?

Inside, she’d wanted this more than ever. She’d dreamt and written about Leo’s innocence. She’d longed for him to be released from Azkaban, an apology from the Ministry of Magic for having destroyed their lives. Then he’d come home and they could be a family like they’d always meant to be.

But this wasn’t going to be like that. Leo hated her and she wasn’t exactly sure how she felt about him. Was he safe to be around her son? There was nothing she could do about it if he was released.

“He wants to meet you too.” The witch’s words were quiet, as if the breath had been sucked from her body and she struggled to make the sounds. “But who will he meet, Leo? Is his father, as I knew him, still in there? Or is it just the angry shell of a man?”

He managed a half laugh, but there was no humor in it.  Shaking his head, he looked past her, looked away.

"And yet you don't think that you're the one that I need most to convince," he said tiredly.

That was the long and short of it.  Genny was determined to hold everything over his head; to do anything she could to avoid her own culpability in his conviction and in keeping his son a secret from him for thirteen years.  She might not be able to prevent him from meeting Dante if he were really, truly exonerated tomorrow, but if she decided to stand against him in this, then he'd have to fight again and again every time he wanted to see his son.

That was the thing that he wasn't sure he could ever forgive her for, despite Enid's pretty words.  Genny had decided that he didn't even have the right to know that he was a father, and now she stood before him, passing judgement again.

"I would never do anything to cause harm to Dante."  He swallowed, his gaze locked on his wife's face.  He could feel the anger bristling in his chest, but he tried to force it down.  "You've kept me from him for thirteen years, Genny.  Please give me the chance to try to be his father."

Thirteen years. Genevieve had kept a secret from her husband for thirteen years. Originally, she’d been scared of the pregnancy and what it would mean for his own sanity, so she’d not told him. She hadn’t wanted to extra worry playing on his mind, or for it to become public during the trial. When he’d been convicted, the thought of telling him about the child that he’d never raise had been heart-breaking. So, she’d kept silent and forced his parents to remain silent too. They’d not been happy, but they’d understood her reasoning and respected her wishes.

Now, in their present situation, it appeared she’d made the worst decision. The intense anger clearly simmering beneath the surface was enough evidence of that.

As Leo’s words sunk in, Gen remained silent. Part of her felt the need to once more point out that she hadn’t locked him up. That she’d done nothing back then. But she knew it wasn’t worth it. He’d probably only lose his temper again.

“If you walk out of here a free man tomorrow, if you want it, it’s as his father.” Wasn’t that what she’d always wanted? Gen had never signed up to being a single parent. She’d always dreamed of doing it with Leo by her side; the unstoppable pair. But they had been stoppable. They had been breakable. “He’s desperate to meet you. Desperate for us to be a family.” Awkward, Gen glanced away, down at her hands that were now resting on the table between them, fingers laced loosely. “He’s convinced that you’ll be walking through our front door tomorrow afternoon and it will be as if you were never not there.”

He knew these things about his son.  He knew from Dante's letters how badly he wanted their family to be whole again, how invested he was in showing the world that his father was not a Death Eater.  Dante had grown up only knowing a broken family, with a father who didn't even know that he existed.  More than anything, he seemed to hope that his father's second chance at freedom would mean that they could all be together again.

But the world didn't work that way, and he knew that, looking at Genny now.  At the awkward way she glanced away, at how she laced her fingers together.  Even if he were found innocent tomorrow, there were some broken pieces that couldn't be mended.

Months ago, when Enid had first met with him, he'd wanted nothing more from freedom than to make everyone who'd betrayed him pay.  But now, knowing that Dante was on the other side of these stone walls, he had something to hope for, too.  He was still terrified that Theodora Kingstreet would find a way to reach him, to get her claws into Genny so that she could hurt their son.  But at least if he were on the outside, he might finally be in a place where he could do something about it.

"I'd trade freedom all over again if it meant that I could be his father."  He swallowed hard again, his throat suddenly too dry.  "If I walk out of here tomorrow, are you going to let me meet him, Genny?"

Gen’s gaze shot up to meet his glance, her brows furrowed in confusion. She’d thought that had been made clear by her previous comments. Clearly not.

“He’s your son, Leo.” She said responded as if it were obvious. Then she let out a quick sigh and continued with difficulty. “I made the decision not to tell you about him because you’d just been sentenced to life when I found out. I didn’t want you also facing having a child that you would never meet. I thought it would be easier for you if you didn’t know. So… I stopped visiting you.” He may not have believed her, but her concerns had been genuine. Gen’s body language had changed. Her shoulders were more hunched over, a defensive position as she put herself out there for him. It was a challenge to continue to keep his eye contact, but she managed it as she continued.

“It was…it was a &#*$ decision. And an apology isn’t enough for never having even known of him because he’s an amazing kid. And, I’m not just saying that because he’s my kid. He really is. ^&%*ing, too clever for me.” As she spoke, Gen hadn’t noticed that she’d been wringing her hands together on the table. When she did spot it, she stopped.
“I’m not going to stand in your way.” She tried to blink away some of the tears, but it didn’t work. “But if you get out, Leo, don’t let anyone put you back in here, because that kid won’t cope with it and he doesn’t deserve to have to.”

He listened without moving, green eyes locked on his wife's dark gaze, even as her eyes filled with tears.  She was wringing her hands together on the table between them; he noticed at the same instant she did, when she stopped herself and held them still instead.  He moved his right arm forward, almost as if he was going to reach for her hand, until the chain attached to the manacle around his wrist shifted and he pressed his fingers flat on the table instead.

"I'm not planning to," he said quietly.  He'd die before he'd come back to this place, full of cold gray stones and forgotten ghosts. 

He looked down for a moment to her hands, to his own.  Silently, he lifted his gaze to her face again.

"Tell him I'm sorry," he said, the muscles in his neck tight.  "That I hope I'll get to meet him, after tomorrow."

Leo shifted, the sound of the chains she’d forgotten about alerting her to the movement. After tomorrow, there would possibly be no more chains. She thought over their last meeting, where his anger had spurred him to stand and reach for her, but his movements had been halted by the magical silver chains. Would he lose his temper when released? He’d have his wand back then, too. He wasn’t losing his temper, today. He looked like the man she’d known and he was far calmer. But those familiar green eyes that had once been filled with love were cold and angry. Gen wondered if they’d be filled with love when he met Dante.

"Tell him I'm sorry," Leo replied. "That I hope I'll get to meet him, after tomorrow."

Gen nodded. She tentatively reached a hand forward and put it over Leo’s, squeezing tightly. It was the first time that she’d touched her husband in 13 years. The last time had been a painfully brief embrace when he’d been arrested and she’d come to the ministry. Dante had been born and grown up since then. They’d both lived a lifetime since then. Gen was a different person, and her husband probably was, too.

“I will.” she quietly acquiesced. Then, she said something that surprised even her. It confused even her.

“Come home.”

Did it mean home to her flat? With her son? Did it mean to just get released? Did she even mean it? Did he scare her? Was he really innocent? Did it matter? Could she forgive the angry letters and the barrage of books and hateful words? Could they start afresh with their son? Or would she panic and keep Dante from him? All Gen had wanted for 13 years was at her grasp now, but she wasn’t so sure anymore.

After another squeeze of his hand, Gen turned and left. She’d be seeing him tomorrow, after all.